Page:English Historical Review Volume 37.djvu/73

 1922 COUNCIL AND CABINET, 1679-88 65 , - When the king was at Windsor the cabinet usually met there, though he occasionally came to London to confer with his advisers. Otherwise the meetings were apparently at Whitehall in the office of the senior secretary of state. 1 The privy council normally met in the council chamber at Whitehall on Wednesday and Friday, but there was no rigid uniformity. Thus between 24 January and 19 March 1680 there were fifteen meetings, one on a Monday, one on a Tuesday, five on Wednesdays, six on Fridays, and two on Saturdays. Sometimes the privy council met at Windsor, 2 and, very rarely, on Sundays. 3 There is one other remark of North's which is worthy of a brief notice, as some writers have been inclined to lay stress on it. 4 After supplying an excellent definition of the composition of the cabinet ' those few great officers and courtiers whom the king relied on for the interior dispatch of his affairs ' and explaining that it was derived from the privy council, North continues : ' Thus the cabinet council, which at first was but in the nature of a private conversation, came to be a formal council and had the direction of most transactions of the government, foreign and domestic.' 5 As North is obviously giving a brief historical sketch of the rise of the cabinet, it seems very arbitrary to apply the first part of this particular sentence to the period after 1679. It would aptly describe the cabinet of James I or Charles I, but is inapplicable to that of Charles II and James II, except in the sense that all discussions in the cabinet were private conversations. Diary, 22 September 1688). Ailesbury states that ' Sundays were Cabinet Council days' (Memoirs, i. 177, 261). During the crisis which immediately preceded and followed the landing of William of Orange at Torbay (5 November 1688), the cabinet met frequently. In October there were at least seven meetings, in November nine, including five on consecutive days, Thursday 8-Monday 12 November (Hist. MSS. Comm., Dartmouth MSS., pp. 143-218, passim ; Evelyn's Diary, 1 November). Similarly, if the references in the letters of Jenkins (or his clerks) to Preston for the committee for foreign affairs are tabulated, it will be found that the committee met on six out of seven occasions on a Sunday, 28 May, 23 July, 27 August, 22 October, 24 December 1682, 21 October 1683, 20 January 1684 (the last being a Monday) (Hist. MSS. Comm., Seventh Report, pp. 353-68). It may be added that the fact that both the cabinet and the committee for foreign affairs usually met on Sunday supports the view that they are identical. 1 ' I am now in Lord Sunderland's office, where a Cabinet Council is holding, the King in it ; came from Windsor this evening on purpose ' (18 September 1688, Ellis Correspondence, ii. 192). Cf. Ailesbury's Memoirs, i. 298 : ' The first Secretary of State (in whose office the Cabinet Council is generally held).' 2 Privy Coun. Reg. Ixx, 30 August, 7 September, &c., 1683. Cf. Ellis Correspon- dence, ii. 108, 7 August 1688 : ' Councils and committees were put off at Windsor by reason that the King was with the Prince at Windsor.' 3 Privy Coun. Reg. Jxx. 76, 25 November 1683 : ' His Majesty having this after- noon called an extraordinary councell, was pleased to acquaint them that the duke of Monmouth did last night surrender himself to Mr. secretary Jenkins. . . . His Majesty was pleased to pardon the said duke.' 4 Mr. E. R. Turner, to whose many articles on the cabinet I am glad to express my obligations, states (after referring to the passage from North I have criticized supra, p. 58) : ' This differentiation of the cabinet from the foreign committee gives greater significance to the assertion that " the cabinet council ... at first was but in Ahe nature of a private conversation " ' (Amer. Hist. Rev. xix. 789), Lives of the Norths, i. 298-9. VOL. XXXVH. NO. CXLV. F